“Then,” said the master of the horse, “thou shalt be hanged for what thou hast made already, and so were the great secret for ever lost to mankind.  Do not humanity this injustice, good father, but e’en bend to thy destiny, and make us an ounce or two of this same stuff; which cannot prejudice above one or two individuals, in order to gain lifetime to discover the universal medicine, which shall clear away all mortal diseases at once.  But cheer up, thou grave, learned, and most melancholy jackanape!  Hast thou not told me that a moderate portion of thy drug hath mild effects, no ways ultimately dangerous to the human frame, but which produces depression of spirits, nausea, headache, an unwillingness to change of place—­even such a state of temper as would keep a bird from flying out of a cage were the door left open?”

“I have said so, and it is true,” said the alchemist.  “This effect will it produce, and the bird who partakes of it in such proportion shall sit for a season drooping on her perch, without thinking either of the free blue sky, or of the fair greenwood, though the one be lighted by the rays of the rising sun, and the other ringing with the newly-awakened song of all the feathered inhabitants of the forest.”

“And this without danger to life?” said Varney, somewhat anxiously.

“Ay, so that proportion and measure be not exceeded; and so that one who knows the nature of the manna be ever near to watch the symptoms, and succour in case of need.”

“Thou shalt regulate the whole,” said Varney.  “Thy reward shall be princely, if thou keepest time and touch, and exceedest not the due proportion, to the prejudice of her health; otherwise thy punishment shall be as signal.”

“The prejudice of her health!” repeated Alasco; “it is, then, a woman I am to use my skill upon?”

“No, thou fool,” replied Varney, “said I not it was a bird—­a reclaimed linnet, whose pipe might soothe a hawk when in mid stoop?  I see thine eye sparkle, and I know thy beard is not altogether so white as art has made it—­that, at least, thou hast been able to transmute to silver.  But mark me, this is no mate for thee.  This caged bird is dear to one who brooks no rivalry, and far less such rivalry as thine, and her health must over all things be cared for.  But she is in the case of being commanded down to yonder Kenilworth revels, and it is most expedient—­most needful—­most necessary that she fly not thither.  Of these necessities and their causes, it is not needful that she should know aught; and it is to be thought that her own wish may lead her to combat all ordinary reasons which can be urged for her remaining a housekeeper.”

“That is but natural,” said the alchemist with a strange smile, which yet bore a greater reference to the human character than the uninterested and abstracted gaze which his physiognomy had hitherto expressed, where all seemed to refer to some world distant from that which was existing around him.